As a substitute teacher, some days I feel like I’ve seen it all. Fist fights, asthma attacks, clique wars, spitwads… There have been a lot of spitwads. Despite it all, I still find amusing surprises in my study of the preteen animal.

• In social studies, the kids were learning about world religions. A smattering of kids were volunteering to read sections out loud to the class, but when we came to the paragraph about Shi’ites and Sunnis, every hand was waving. Every single hour! It finally dawned on me that kids weren’t as interested in Islam as they were in reading what looked kind of like a bad word. They got pretty revved up about the word kibbutz, too. “Kih-BUTTS,” they giggled. Few things, apparently, are more hilarious than your classmate reading the words “Shi’ite” and “kibbutz.”

• I was subbing for a math class one afternoon, and when the kids got back from lunch, they were tittering about 1:00. “1:00!” they hissed at each other. “Don’t forget 1:00!”

  “What happens at 1:00?” I asked a boy in the front row. Their class wouldn’t end until 1:15, so I figured they had hatched an exciting and deviant plan during lunch to try to trick the sub into letting them leave early.

  The boy seemed taken aback that I had overheard him reminding his friends about 1:00. “I’ve already said too much,” he replied mysteriously.

  Normally a secret doesn’t last too long, because when you’ve got thirty 12 year olds milling about, someone’s bound to spill the beans. There’s usually a kid who feels so smug about his cleverness that he has to confess, like a movie villain who has the hero at gunpoint. There are usually a good share of tattlers, too!

  Nonetheless, the kids kept their lips sealed. At 12:45, they began to get restless. “1:00!” they mouthed to each other.

  At 12:50 they were wriggling in their seats.

  By 12:55, all eyes were glued to the clock.

  At 12:59, the room became dead silent. (This NEVER ever EVER ever happens.)

  By 12:59:30, the tension was palpable. “30 seconds!” a girl announced, as if someone could get by without noticing.

  12:59:45. Amused, I join the clock watch. “15 seconds!” I call.

  12:59:55.

  12:59:59.

  1:00:00. Thirty wooden thuds, as every kid drops a pencil at once.

  Sheer comic gold. The kids are clutching their stomachs, laughing at their DEVIOUS, DEVIOUS plan. I laugh too. Then they suddenly sober up. A nervous-looking girl approaches me. “Are you going to leave a really bad report for our class?”

  All eyes fix on me. I chuckle. “For what?”

  Visibly relieved that I wasn’t going to tattle on them for their cute staging of the most old school prank ever, the kids begin planning an event for 1:05.

  “1:04!” I announce.

  When the hand hits the twelve, every kid begins coughing. Then they laugh.

  At 1:10, everyone drops the math book.

  At 1:15, I was sad to see them go, but word spread like wildfire through the hallways. As the next batch of kids strolled in, I overheard kids saying, “Pencil drop at 1:30! Tell everyone!” One boy even made a sign to hold up to the class. At 1:30, a handful of pencils clattered to the floor. They tried, but they just didn’t have the same pizzazz or subtlety. It was a truly lackluster performance.

I wouldn’t recommend subbing to anyone. It’s a pretty stressful, thankless job. But I have to admit, some days, the kids are pretty damn cute.

I’ve spent the month of December writing 48 pages worth of final papers, and I’ve been intensely looking forward to vacation. Vacation! Whenever I got stressed out about all the presentations I had to do and the papers I had to write, I would daydream about everything I would do when my work was done. I was going to read Water for Elephants! Eat gummi bears! Rent The Sopranos and watch every season in one sitting! It was going to be great!

Here’s what I did instead.

Monday
My mom calls. She’s at a checkup at the podiatrist’s for the foot she broke in February. He has spontaneously decided to “perform a minor surgery.” It’s nothing big, he’s just going to “nick a tendon.” She drives herself home and hobbles into the house.

As she’s taking off her coat, her cell phone rings. We got an offer on our house.

Tuesday
I wake up. It’s cold. The furnace stopped working in the night.

Since my mom’s still in pain from her “minor surgery,” I sub for her class. Kids are bad, yadda yadda. Meanwhile, my mom rushes to Timbuktu and back, and then to Timbuktu and back again, trying to get documentation and file a police report because some dummy has identity frauded her and we apparently owe $650 in electricity on some house an hour and a half away on a street we’ve never heard of.

My mom and sister pick me up at 3:30 and we race to the power company, which is an hour away and closes at 4:30. Alan helpfully provides directions over the phone, and we think we might be able to make it. Suddenly, traffic on the expressway stops. It’s 4:16, and we’re 5 miles away from our exit. We get off on the first available exit, and Alan magically modifies the directions for us for our new route. (Who needs GPS when you have Alan? He even used satellite imagery to describe the location to us!) We stop at every light, staring at the clock. 4:19. 4:21. 4:23. Finally, we get to the power company at 4:26. My mom jumps out of the car and races toward the building while my sister and I pump nickels and quarters into the parking meter. We get in!

We wait 20 minutes for a free clerk, and when the receptionist calls my mom’s name, my sister and I get up to join her. The security guard comes over and tells us that “Just one person will be fine.” We sit back down and get chatted up by some dude.

My mom supplies all the documentation, and now it’s up to the power company to figure out what to do about it. Interesting (yet unsurprising) fact: if you ever experience identity fraud, it’s up to you to prove residency for 5 years, present multiple forms of ID, file police reports, and take days off from work because of the power company’s unaccommodating business hours and very distant location.

We rush back home so we don’t miss the furnace guy, who’s coming out to take a look.

Shortly before the furnace guy arrives, we figure out the problem. The water’s cold and the stove won’t turn on. We haven’t been checking the propane pig, and we’re out of gas. We call the furnace guy and tell him not to come.

It’s 8:00 pm. We call the propane company to find out about how we can get some fuel so we can have some damn heat again. They can come tonight, but it’ll cost an extra $125. We decide to tough it out for the night. It’s 50 degrees inside. It’ll be like camping! I don a fleece shirt, fleece pants, and fleece socks.

Wednesday
I wake up to see if my mom needs me to sub for her again, and as I leave my room, I smell fumes. My mom and stepdad are in the kitchen, warming themselves by a propane heater. Remembering the article I read about carbon monoxide poisonings in Seattle, I get paranoid and tell them that they should crack a window. My mom leaves early to take a shower at our old house, which, among its various other amenities, has the lure of hot water.

I try to go back to bed, but I’m worried about my sister, so I go in to check on her. I don’t want to make her paranoid about CO poisoning, so I pretend I’m checking if she’s warm enough. As I open the door, the kitten, who is a notorious electrical cord chewer, leaps into the room. I lean down in the dark to catch the cat, not seeing the wooden chair that’s between the kitten and me, and I get smacked in the chin and the chest by a piece of furniture. I kind of fall over in pain, which freaks my half-asleep sister out, who jumps out of bed to check on me. I mumble something about propane heater and possible carbon monoxide and does she feel okay?, which stresses her out more. “My chest is feeling tight,” she says. “I’m having trouble breathing.”

She stumbles out of her room, and ends up collapsing. “Oh my god, are you all right?!” I exclaim. She doesn’t really reply. I try to heave her up by the armpits, but she’s like a sack of potatoes: dead weight. I call to my stepdad, who upon coming upstairs, can finally smell the fumes. “Wow, even I’m feeling woozy up here,” he says, as he and I struggle to pick up my sister.

We awkwardly carry/drag her downstairs and lay her on the couch, where she perks up a little. I open a window and start obsessively googling “carbon monoxide symptoms.” She’s tired and wants to go to bed, but obviously she doesn’t want to go back to her room until we can get a carbon monoxide detector. The three of us set off for the grocery store at 7:00 am.

We buy a carbon monoxide detector, and it doesn’t go off when we set it up in my sister’s room. She goes back to sleep, but my stepdad and I are worried about her, as is my mom, who keeps calling us to check on our status. I make an appointment for her to see the doctor at 9:30, and my stepdad calls the propane company to arrange for a delivery.

We go to the doctor’s, and my sister receives a clean bill of health. The doctor doesn’t think she had carbon monoxide poisoning, and just that with all the stress in the morning, her heart had been beating too fast or something vague like that, but that we should get the propane heater out of the kitchen.

We come home, and shortly thereafter the propane guy comes. He fills up the empty tank, and very kindly takes the time to look at our furnace while he’s here. We turn on the stove’s burners to flush the air out of the gas line, and we spend forever trying to get the pilot light on the furnace to stay on. For about an hour or so, we keep trying to coax the pilot light on, and the burners on the stove aren’t really burning that much, either. There’s a LOT of air in the gas line, apparently.

Finally we realize that the gas had been shut off on the propane pig. A simple turn of the faucet, and the pilot light stays on. The furnace starts blowing, the water heater starts heating, and the damn stove works again. The propane guy, bless his sweet golden heart, does not point out the obvious: that we had just wasted an hour of his time. He even (very politely!) says, “You know, I never thought to check the pig.” Embarrassed, we walk him back to his truck.

Finally we have heat! Except now I can’t find the kitten. I hadn’t seen her since we left for the doctor’s.

I begin searching the house in earnest, looking in every cupboard, in every closet, under every bed, in every room, in every laundry basket. She’s nowhere to be found. I start worrying that she got outside, and I circle our property a handful of times, calling for her. Now that we live in the woods, I’m sure there are predators out there, and it gets so cold at night that I worry that she could freeze overnight. Where is she?

For the next three hours, I search everywhere for her. She doesn’t seem to be inside, she doesn’t seem to be outside, she doesn’t seem to be anywhere. I alternate between optimism and despair. Most of the time I can handle the situation, but occasionally I get overwhelmed with worry. Where is she?!

I try to find a recent picture of her so I can start making LOST CAT signs, and I’m saddened that so many of my pictures are blurry. She’s such a livewire that she never stands in one place long enough to be photographed. She’s elusive, like the Loch Ness monster. No photographic proof can document her existence. I may never see her again, and I don’t even have a good picture of her. I cry a little. I settle on two bad pictures and print off some copies.

I tape up my signs, and it feels like I’m giving up on her. I search a little more, but I’m too overwhelmed. I need to take a break. I lay down on my bed and start crying.

As I reach for a Kleenex, I feel something hard shift beneath me. I jump off the bed and begin feeling around, trying to find the hard lump. It’s not under my duvet, but in it, trapped inside the cover. The blankets are so twisted up, and I’m scared to death of what I might find. Is it her? Can she breathe in there? Could she have asphyxiated? Did I crush her? I finally find the little tan body I’d been searching for, on and off, from 8:00 am to 3:17 pm. She’s limp in my arms as I hold her against me, crying and kissing her soft brown fur. I set her down and she crawls under my bed, in that flattened, skulky way only a cat can do. I cry and call everyone to tell them the news, ripping down the LOST signs I had taped by the road.

My mom calls. Our counteroffer was accepted. We sold our house.

My little joy and despair, returning to the scene of the crime.

All in all, I think it had a happy ending. I’m still too stressed out to feel relieved, so I’m not sure. All I know is I can’t wait for this vacation to be over so I can take a break.

At least they spelled it right.


On the left it says, “Nope, from your cousin.”

A variant on the classic ‘Kick Me’:

Things that Will Happen When You Sub in Home Ec

The teacher will assume you know how to hand sew(!?), and you’ll have to compensate with confidence what you lack in competence. “So, um, this is how you thread a needle… as you can see, sometimes it takes a few tries… Okay, sometimes you need to cut the end of the thread before you can poke it through… other times you need to wet the thread first… this is a perfect example of how it might take you a few [10] tries before you get it. Now, as for knotting the thread….”

While filling out a worksheet on meal planning, some kids will have breakfasts like: 1 cup Cheerios (dry), 1/2 cup of carrots. Others will have Saltines for dinner. Meanwhile, they’ll be passing around a lemon Kool Aid packet and eating UNSWEETENED Kool Aid powder.

When one of the teachers hears you’re subbing for home ec, his response will be, “So the school’s going to burn down today?”

In every hour, a 6th grade boy will gleefully run up to you with a needle stuck through the dead skin on his palm. Each will act like he’s the first person in the universe to come up with such a wild and crazy idea.

You’ll think you’re going to get the best kids in the school, those sweet, domestically-inclined ones who enjoy cooking and sewing. In reality, the classes will be filled with the school’s hoodlums, who chose the elective because, and I quote, “It’s boring but it’s easier than Spanish or French,” or because they can’t be trusted with a musical instrument. You would also think that choir kids would be good, but the sad truth of the matter is, home ec and choir attract the bullies, the rat finks, and the ne’er-do-wells.

When you hand one of the boys an embroidery hoop, he’ll frisbee it across the room. “I ain’t gonna sew with that!” he’ll exclaim, “I ain’t no Granny.”

One of the geniuses in your class will get caught skateboarding in the hall. On a 3″ finger skateboard.

P.S. I was going to post this yesterday, but right as I started to log on, I dumped a cup of water into my laptop! And can you believe that Sunday was the first time I ever backed up my hard drive, thanks to cupCAKE’s hard drive scare? BACKING UP DATA SAVES LIVES.

Handy Hint: In case anyone gets here by googling “oh my god i just spilled water into my laptop what the fuck do i do,” what I did seems to be supported by extensive (2 minute) googling:
Turn the computer off ASAP.
Unplug the power cord.
Tilt the computer around to pour out any water that may be busily frying your motherboard.
Once you think you’ve gotten all the water out, lay the open laptop flat on a towel in a warm, dry room, keyboard and screen facing down (so the water doesn’t puddle on your circuitry).
Take the battery out and make sure everything’s dry, especially the contacts.
Blast everything with a hair dryer on the cool setting.
Bite your fingernails for 24 hours before you turn it on.

Thankfully, mine didn’t get too wet, and it seems *fingers crossed fingers crossed* to be working.

One of the cute things about middle schoolers is that they like to ask point-blank questions that older kids have been socialized not to ask, those questions we consider too “personal.” I’m quite charmed by their lack of guile. Kids just say the DURNDEST things, don’t they?

Boy: So, who are you voting for tomorrow?
Kiki (in her glamorous role as Substitute Teacher, knowing better than to open that particular can of worms, nor influence the impressionable young minds of tomorrow): *shrugs*
Boy: Are you a Democrat or a Republican?
Kiki: *shrugs*
Boy: Well, let me put it this way: Do you like Bush?
Kiki: *shrugs more emphatically* *thinks about distracting the boy by talking about what she’s voting for one of the more inane proposals*
Girl: I know what to ask! Do you like to shop at Walmart?
Kiki: No.
In unison:
Boy: Then you’re a Republican!
Girl: Then you’re a Democrat!
Boy: No, it means she’s a Republican. My dad told me that Republicans have all the money, and that Democrats don’t have any money.
A passing teacher, to the kids: This is why you’re not allowed to vote.

…

Kiki: I like shopping at Target. What does that indicate about my political preferences?
Boy: You mean Tar-jay?
Teacher: That means you’re a liberal.

…

In other news, short hair is continuing to perplex the kiddies. Or is it something else?

Girl, cutely flustered: So I’m going to ask you a question, and it sounds silly, but take me seriously.
Kiki, solmenly: Okay.
Girl: Are you a lesbian?

I think next time I’ll tell them I am, just to raise some awareness for LGBT issues. Might as well take advantage of the soap box I’ve accidentally found myself on top of. Or maybe I could tell them it depends on if it’s an odd or even day of the month.

Good news: cupCAKE’s computer has risen from the grave, data unharmed! Makes me wish I didn’t back up 24GB of photos last night! We may all rejoice and resume our non-data-back-upping ways!

I found this in the 7th grade hallway. I sure hope this is an example of long-term, not short-term planning!

I think they’re hoping for a girl.

Please enjoy and use often.

“This is an AB conversation, so C your way out of here before D jumps over E and Fs you up, G.”

The perennial Yo’ Mama joke:

Your momma’s so…
“… old she was a waitress at the Last Supper.”
“… ugly she went to a strip club and they paid her to put her clothes back on.”
“… stupid she went to a Clipper’s game and expected to get a haircut.”
“… old she sat behind Jesus in kindergarten.”

I’ve been reading Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, and her entry on Dessert spoke to me. When her kids asked her which Halloween goodies they could eat after dinner, she had a strategy.

“I take a quick look at the items they are holding up in their hands and, without hesitation, assess the inventory and respond accordingly. You can have half the candy cane and the mini Baby Ruth. They accept my arbitrary ruling as gospel, as if it stems from some great unwavering truth.”

When I substitute teach, I try to make the kids happy. Mostly it’s because I like when they’re happy, but it doesn’t hurt that it makes my life a lot easier, too. It doesn’t take all that long for a class to figure out what kind of sub you are. Over the years, they’ve finely honed a radar that tells them, within the first 30 seconds, exactly what they can get away with and to what extent. In my case, their sub-dar inevitably reveals that I’m a doormat.

When I first started, I made the mistake of trying to appeal to the kids’ sense of reason.

“Can I lie on the floor?” one bold little rapscallian would ask.
“Welllll…” I’d say, stalling for time, “I wish I could let you, but what if the principal walks by? He wouldn’t like it if you were on the floor.”
“Oh, he won’t see me.”
“The floor’s dirty. It will get your shirt all dusty.”
“I don’t care about dirt.”
“What if someone steps on you?”
“I won’t let them.”
“Um….”

Over time, I’ve learned that the best thing to do is make up an excuse, because there’s really no reasoning with a kid hell-bent on doing something devious.

“Can I tape this ‘Kick Me’ sign on Ty? It’ll be really funny.”
“Actually, your teacher mentioned in her note that no one’s supposed to do ‘Kick Me’ signs today. Sorry! Maybe you could ask her about that tomorrow!”

A teacher’s note is an inalienable, legally-binding document, and I’ve learned that the easiest way to get a kid to stop doing something is to claim that their teacher expressly forbid it. You want to eat Jolly Ranchers in class? Sorry! Your teacher said no candy today. Oh, you want to play your Marilyn Manson CD? Unfortunately, your teacher wrote that she doesn’t want anybody to use her CD player. Sorry, we’re not supposed to [stick licorice in the pencil sharpener/jump on the tables/burn the classroom down] today.”

Amazingly enough, this kind of specificity works, and all most some kids take these prohibitions at face value. It’s not that I personally am restricting your right to catapault Laffy Taffy across the room, it’s just that your teacher asked me to make sure no one used slingshots today. There is no greater authority than an absent teacher’s note, and by claiming deference to it, I get some immunity.

My other secret weapon is to postpone the problem. If a kid begs me to let her draw on the chalkboard, all I have to say is, “Great idea! Ask your teacher tomorrow if you can do it!” Defeated, the student slinks back to her desk.

Arbitrary responses have made such a profound difference in my life. They’ve also helped me keep the number of hall passes down. Kids are constantly asking for random passes to go whoknowswhere so they can really meet whoknowswho. Every time kids complained of stomachaches, I’d dutifully write them passes to the infirmary, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that statistically speaking, it’s unlikely that half the class needs to go home sick at any given time. I was beginning to worry that the infirmary would call Child Protective Services on me for sending 3 kids down every hour.

To separate the tricksters from the legitimate patients, I’ve invented lots of dubious cures.

“My throat hurts.”
“Why don’t you go get a drink of water? That should make the pain go away.”

“Someone dropped a book on my foot. I need an icepack.”
“You know, if you rub your foot a little, it will make it feel better. If it doesn’t get better in 5 minutes, let me know.”

By then they’ve usually forgotten all about it. Dr. Kiki at your service.

This weekend, I did something I swore I’d never do. I’ll give you a hint: it involves a DVD.

I was walking through Blockbuster’s* New Releases section when I succumbed to my advanced case of NBAD, and before I knew what was happening, I was clutching Herbie: Fully Loaded in my hot little hands and palming the friendly clerk an Andrew Jackson.**

* Since when did I become Blockbuster’s poster girl? Am I getting any royalties for this advertising? Blockbuster: call me!
** Andrew Jackson doesn’t have quite the same ring that a Benjamin would, but I’ll take my cha-CHING in whatever denominations they’ll give me. At present, I’m more likely to be spending Hamiltons.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I can’t claim the devil made me do it. It was totally premeditated. When I saw that all of the copies were out, I kept returning to that wall on the off chance that it would get restocked. When that didn’t happen, I asked the clerk to check the drop-off box. Shut up. You’d have done it, too.

Herbie: Fully Loaded is the tale of a VW Bug who, with a little bit of chutzpah, manages to overcome adversity and save the day. (Sorry, I hope that wasn’t too much of a spoiler.) Herbie was very cute with his droopy headlight eyes, smiling bumper mouth, and sun visor eyebrows. In a wincing, I-can’t-believe-I’m-watching-a(nother)-Lindsay-Lohan-movie kind of way, I found Herbie surprisingly unpainful. (By the way, Michael Keaton, what happened? What was the defining moment in your career when you went from being the best Batman since Adam West to Lindsay’s dopey dad? Ahh… Multiplicity. It’s all coming clear.)

Ostensibly, I rented the movie to see Herbie’s love interest, a curvaceous, yellow New Beetle. (”Herbie: Fully Loaded: come for the hot chicks and their voluptuous 2.5 Liter engines, stay for the gratuitous CGI!”) Unfortunately, with 30 seconds in the limelight and no lines, she served as mere eyecandy, but I’m not complainin’. I was, however, a bit creeped out by Herbie’s occasional antenna erections.

You’ll be glad to know that I did NOT tear up during the movie, not even when Herbie would shrug his shoulders in that sad, dejected little way of his. I did NOT smirk when Herbie outraced muscle cars, and I did NOT feel an overwhelming sense of Volkswagon Pride by the movie’s conclusion. Such reactions would be juvenile and obviously beneath my level of emotional maturity, and so quite clearly, I would never behave in such a manner.****

**** Curse you, Disney!

I did kind of hope that Herbie would team up with some other VWs and drive around town in a gang of Jettas, Golfs, Rabbits, Busses, and Karmann Ghias. VW, if you’re interested in marketing this idea and hooking me up with some Benjamins, call me!

Anyway, as you can imagine, I had Beetles on my mind the next day. While subbing for a math class, I thought I overheard two 8th grade boys talking about them.

“Are you talking about VW Beetles?” I perked up, hoping to join the conversation.
There was a pause, and then one of the boys replied, “Huh?”
“VWs? Beetles?” I persisted.
Another pause. “Um, nope.”
“Sorry,” I said stupidly. By means of explanation, I added, “I just watched Herbie last night, so I have Beetles on the brain.”
They kind of sat there for a moment. “Beatles rock!” one of the boys suddenly piped up. Enthusiastically, he continued, “We all live in a yellow submarine….”

It’s nice to know that math teachers still get their Math Nerd groove on in the quiet moments before the bell rings at the beginning of the day. I was walking through the hall and overheard a small gathering of math teachers (a flock of math teachers? a drove? a dazzle?) shake their Pythagorean theorems. One teacher, reenacting a conversation he had with a student, said, “Look familiar? It’s a leaf plot! Hel-loooo?”

A leaf plot indeed! Shazam! You go, boy!